The Reserve Bank of India will take all possible monetary measures to maintain price stability, deputy governor Rakesh Mohan said on Wednesday.

He said the RBI would focus on liquidity management, saying a reasonable amount of sterilisation of excess cash was needed to achieve desired monetary growth.

"Maintenance of macroeconomic stability and financial stability is important to us," Mohan told an investor seminar.

"We will take all possible monetary actions to maintain price stability and will respond swiftly to bring inflation down."

Inflation, as measured by wholesale prices, touched a two-year high of 6.73 per cent in early February but has since slowed to an annual 6.10 per cent, although it is still well above the central bank's projection of 5.0-5.5 per cent.

India's economy is estimated to grow at 9.2 per cent this fiscal year to March 31, its fastest pace in nearly two decades, and this has attracted foreign investment into the stock market.

The inflows have pushed up the rupee against the dollar, causing a headache for the central bank which has been intervening to keep it down by selling rupees.

Data this week showed the central bank bought nearly $8 billion in the three months ended January. The rupees its sells during intervention add to money supply, which has been growing at annual rates of around 20 per cent.

To prevent the excess cash finding its way into commercial and consumer lending, the central bank has resumed sales of market stabilisation bonds after a gap of more than 18 months as a way to absorb the funds.

"With this kind of buoyant growth and expectations of growth the flow of capital has increased tremendously and therefore there has to be a reasonable degree of sterilisation in order to maintain the monetary growth that we would like to have," Mohan said.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com

In a novel way to help sex-workers to live more meaningfully, country's largest private sector

bank, ICICI Bank is planning to offer financial assistance to them though the micro-finance route.

For starters, the bank plans to launch the programme in Kolkata by entering into a tie-up with Durbar Mahila Samwanaya Samitee, an NGO working for the welfare of around 65,000
sex-workers in and around the city

"We propose to help commercial sex workers to move out of their profession in a viable and sustainable way by offering micro-finnace to them," bank's Deputy Managing Director

Nachiket Mor told PTI here.

Under the scheme of arrangement, the NGO would form some Self-Help Groups (SHGs), comprising 10-20 sex-workers. Through these SHGs, the sex-workers would get access of finance.

"With the access of finance, they can set up Kiranna shops or something similar to that," he said.

When contacted, a bank's spokesperson said the bank was intending to offer the service as a part of its finnacial inclusion programme.

"We will roll out the service to other parts of the country to bring marginal and underprivileged class under the banking fold," the bank official said.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com